Rolls-Royce to Cut 2,000-2,500 Jobs Globally in Strategic Overhaul
2 min
Rolls-Royce Holdings is set to cut 2,000-2,500 jobs worldwide as part of a transformation program and strategy review.
The U.K.-based aircraft engine manufacturer, which outlined the review plan in January, said Tuesday that the new structure will create a more agile business better able to serve customers, deliver cost efficiencies, and help it improve its capabilities in areas such as procurement and supply-chain management.
“This is another step on our multiyear transformation journey to build a high performing, competitive, resilient and growing Rolls-Royce,” Chief Executive Tufan Erginbilgic said.
The engineering technology and safety teams will be merged into a single team, responsible for product safety, engineering standards, process, methods and tools. The combined team will be led by Simon Burr, currently director of product development and technology for civil aerospace, who will join the executive team with immediate effect. Enabling functions, like finance, general counsel and people teams will also be brought together.
Chief Technology Officer Grazia Vittadini will leave the company in April.
Other proposals include creating a new enterprise-wide procurement and supplier management organisation, supporting group spend consolidation, leveraging scale and developing consistent standards. As well as savings, a greater focus on these areas will lead to customer service improvements, reducing supply-chain delays.
Rolls-Royce currently employs 42,000 people worldwide.
In an interview with the Wall Street Journal in May, Erginbilgic said that his first goal was to pay down debt and generate cash to restore Rolls-Royce’s investment-grade rating—lost at the start of the pandemic. He said then he also wants to be able to reinstall payments to shareholders, that Rolls-Royce suspended in 2020.
“In every division of the group we are underperforming versus the competition,” Erginbilgic told the Journal then. “That is to me a turnaround case.”
Erginbilgic, a former oil-industry executive, took over as chief executive of Rolls-Royce Holdings in January.
On Aug. 3 Rolls-Royce reported a pretax profit for the six months ended June 30 of 1.42 billion pounds ($1.73 billion), compared with a loss of GBP1.75 billion a year earlier.
Underlying operating profit—a key metric for the company that strips out exceptional and other one-off items—was GBP673 million, up from GBP125 million.
Rolls-Royce’s latest guidance for 2023 is for an underlying operating profit of between GBP1.2 billion and GBP1.4 billion. It expects 400 to 500 total engine deliveries for the year.
Copyright 2020, Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. LEARN MORE
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
Excluding the Covid-19 pandemic period, annual growth was the lowest since 1992
2 min
Australia’s commodity-rich economy recorded its weakest growth momentum since the early 1990s in the second quarter, as consumers and businesses continued to feel the impact of high interest rates, with little expectation of a reprieve from the Reserve Bank of Australia in the near term.
The economy grew 0.2% in the second quarter from the first, with annual growth running at 1.0%, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said Wednesday. The results were in line with market expectations.
It was the 11th consecutive quarter of growth, although the economy slowed sharply over the year to June 30, the ABS said.
Excluding the Covid-19 pandemic period, annual growth was the lowest since 1992, the year that included a gradual recovery from a recession in 1991.
The economy remained in a deep per capita recession, with gross domestic product per capita falling 0.4% from the previous quarter, a sixth consecutive quarterly fall, the ABS said.
A big area of weakness in the economy was household spending, which fell 0.2% from the first quarter, detracting 0.1 percentage point from GDP growth.
On a yearly basis, consumption growth came in at just 0.5% in the second quarter, well below the 1.1% figure the RBA had expected, and was broad-based.
The soft growth report comes as the RBA continues to warn that inflation remains stubbornly high, ruling out near-term interest-rate cuts.
RBA Gov. Michele Bullock said last month that near-term rate cuts aren’t being considered.
Money markets have priced in a cut at the end of this year, while most economists expect that the RBA will stand pat until early 2025.
Treasurer Jim Chalmers has warned this week that high interest rates are “smashing the economy.”
Still, with income tax cuts delivered at the start of July, there are some expectations that consumers will be in a better position to spend in the third quarter, reviving the economy to some degree.
“Output has now grown at 0.2% for three consecutive quarters now. That leaves little doubt that the economy is growing well below potential,” said Abhijit Surya, economist at Capital Economics.
“But if activity does continue to disappoint, the RBA could well cut interest rates sooner,” Surya added.
Government spending rose 1.4% over the quarter, due in part to strength in social-benefits programs for health services, the ABS said.
This stylish family home combines a classic palette and finishes with a flexible floorplan
Just 55 minutes from Sydney, make this your creative getaway located in the majestic Hawkesbury region.
